Forty Matches to Finding Myself

Dear Reader, In my 30-something years of living, I’ve spent a lot of mental and emotional energy fretting over what people thought of me. I imagine that I’m in pretty good company, and I’m guessing that you can relate to the pointless, thankless expenditure of wasted energy that’s required to manage others’ perspectives. Hopefully you…

*Note: I published this post, then took it down, then edited it, and am now reposting it following the total dissolution of my relationship with The Match. This latest version is shared out of a sense of obligation to myself and a commitment to not erase my own story or quiet my voice in an…

This is my 100th blog post, and it comes just after my one-year WordPress anniversary. In honor of this momentous occasion, I’d like to tell you a story… For the past four and a half months, not a day has gone by that I haven’t caught myself marveling about how much I love The Match….

When I was a kid and spent an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom, I remember someone inevitably asking through the locked door, “Did you fall in?!” Cute, right? Any extended period of isolation chalked up to calamity rather than choice. A few days ago, I was reminded of this childhood memory when I…

In the past month, I have abandoned at least a half dozen mostly-finished posts now relegated to draft status in perpetuity. The problem is that I keep having these significant mental/emotional revelations, but by the time I start to process one, another comes rolling along. So I’ve opted to condense all of my shit into…

The danger in having a blog that is largely centered on my dating life is that one day, I will quit dating, leaving me with little to no blog content. And lo and behold, having fallen madly in love with a handsome nerd who makes me unbelievably happy, I now find myself facing the aforementioned…

The Match met my two younger kids a few days ago. This felt both momentous (to me) and insignificant (to them), for what does it mean to meet yet another adult in their child-centric lives? They waved at him obligingly before running back to what they had been doing before. His child was also there,…

Snapshots from today: 8:15 am: The Match insisted on making me breakfast without any clothes on. I returned the favor and made some naked coffee. 8:45 am: We discussed the necessity of a solidly choreographed first dance “if we ever get married,” then we got real about what we actually wanted (a visit to the…

“What do you think it is that makes us different?” The Match asks me. We’ve just finished devouring giant slices of cake — lemon for him, coconut for me — at an Italian coffee place in the city, the second stop on a recent summer weeknight date. When I’d shown up earlier that evening to…

I fear that my blog will start veering into saccharine territory unless I begin covering topics beyond my relationship with The Match. And I promise that I will do so, but first, a few things relevant to The Forty. When I sensed that things between my new guy and I were rapidly becoming serious, I…

I’ve now seen The Match four times in nine days, and I feel like I’m in some kind of alternate reality in which I get what I want but don’t know quite what to do with it. Here, Fortymatches — a handsome, successful, kind, smart, funny, considerate man who’s crazy about you. Have fun! Errrr…ok. Thanks?…

For the past year and a half, I’ve been grappling with recognizing and embracing my self-worth as it pertains to dating. I’ve posted several times (don’t believe me? read here or here, or here, or even here) about my belief in my own undateability, and you’ve perhaps read along as my doubts played out in…

The theme in my life lately has been something along the lines of: don’t make excuses for not doing what you dream of doing — tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. Strangely, this same message was playing out for The Leo and factored heavily into his decision to break up with me. Yep, you read that right. He…

I knew it was a bad sign when I got an unscheduled phone call from The Leo at 8:15 on a weeknight. The ‘why’ of our break-up (for real this time, y’all) isn’t that important. In short, I’m in a place where I have more to give (and by extension, more to demand) than he…

I haven’t really wanted to write this post because I know it will push me to directly confront some realities I’ve been dancing with for a moment here and there before moving onto something less gloomy. The problem is that cracks are forming in my relationship with The Leo, and they’re causing me to re-examine…

A few days ago, I passed The Hermit on a winding two-lane road that I travel several times each day. He drives a big red truck, old but well cared for, and he’s hard to miss. He’d been on my mind lately, as my recent move had edged me just westward enough to require a…

When you work at a big church, the week leading up to Easter is hectic. My week has been dedicated to survival, keeping my head down as I work like crazy to make sure everything I’m responsible for is handled well. But I’m taking my first away-from-my-desk lunch all week to write this post because…

Back a million years ago, in the early days of my marriage, just before the first time My Ex threw my rose-colored glasses on the ground and stomped on them, he and I bought a house. It was a cute two-story place, sage green with a dark green door, a roof with a whimsical slant,…

About a week and a half ago, I broke up with The Leo. And yesterday, we got back together. Let me explain. TLDR for those who don’t feel like reading the original post: The Leo called me and made it clear that he didn’t want to be “in a relationship.” Nor did he want to…

When I recorded the stories that made up The Forty, I wrote mostly from memory, with the benefit of perspective that comes with the passage of time. Now that I’m back in dating land with a renewed sense of intention (though perhaps lacking enthusiasm), writing about dating in real time has me feeling decidedly feisty….